Apr 15 2009
From The Space Library
Global Aerospace Corporation announced that it had received funding through NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to develop a Hypersonic Control Modeling and Simulation Tool (HyperCMST) focusing on a type of ballute (balloon plus parachute). Goodyear Aerospace had invented the large, inflatable devices in 1958, to enable the use of atmospheric drag to decelerate spacecraft. However, unlike most ballute concepts, HyperCMST would encompass more than a drag-only device with no steering capability. Global Aerospace intended to use the HyperCMST to develop a new type of ballute, called a lifting-towed-toroidal ballute. A spacecraft could be able to steer the toroidal ballute using tethers between the spacecraft and the ballute. For example, a ballute-assisted orbit capture of a lander vehicle above the surface of Mars would use a toroidal ballute and inflation tubes connected to the lander via multiple tethers. The spacecraft would tow the ballute using tethers, rather than using some form of rigid attachment device. The spacecraft would jettison the ballute once it had achieved the desired capture orbit. The tethers, which the spacecraft could manipulate, would create aerodynamic lift, making control of the ballute system possible.
Global Aerospace Corporation, “Control of Hypersonic Vehicles for Planetary Capture and Entry Missions,” news release 15 April 2009, http://www.gaerospace.com/press-releases/apr2009.html (accessed 23 May 2011); Bill Christensen, “Ballutes Studied for Hypersonic Space Vehicles,” Space.com, 21 April 2009, http://www.space.com/6602-ballutes-studied-hypersonic-space-vehicles.html (accessed 24 May 2011).
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